Happiness is something fleeting. It's a feeling that has had many definitions through the ages. There's nothing wrong with moments of happiness (whatever that word may mean to you), but seeking happiness for the sake of it will ironically leave one very empty and sad.

"Fragile high self-esteem" is the same thing. Overachievers are generally effeminate nerds. We are also ultimately not rational creatures and can enjoy / seek out things we may consciously reject, especially internally. Certainly not an attention whore though.

I say this only because of experience with this kind of response and behaviour. Anecdotally, such people do indeed rate their abilities very highly, they just don't brag about them (often introverted as well). They think they are better than most people, but this is shadowed by a sense of inferiority (physical or otherwise). They delight in praise even if they are torn between embarrassment and delight. This is why I call this behaviour womanly. Such people are always restricted to second tier and frustrated because they are not truly comfortable in themselves. Perhaps I am totally off, but Corpse is the only judge.

Downplaying one's ability (among other things) can be a social cue instead of simple information exchange, an appearance more than a conviction. We are such social creatures that one can easily convince themselves of conviction where only appearance exists. Status signaling goes hand-in-hand with human existence. It is valuable to recognize it, everyone is afflicted.

Everyone thinks they are better than someone else. The rich look down on the regular joes, the regular schmuck looks down on the criminals, the criminals look down on the other criminal who is less of a selfish shit head, ad infinitum. That being said doesn't high self esteem mean that you wouldn't need to have other's approval to feel complete?

I'm much the opposite. I like competitive video games; DotA and CS:GO at the present, and I beat myself up quite a bit if I lose. Even if my team wins, I'll berate myself for sub-par performance. My friends always tell me to lighten up when we play. I'd say your friend is quite similar to me, really, but while I want myself to be an amazing player, he seems to already think he is one.

You should shed this womanly response to competition (however simulated) and embrace your masculinity. Only women say `tee-hee, I`m not that good LOL` while secretly reveling in praise and attention. Men range from the stoic to the braggart; do not be afraid of pride in your accomplishments. The existence of something like the Duning-Kreuger effect shouldnt blunt our humanity, the only lesson one should take from it is caution. Listen to your friends.

Fucking videogames, soma.

I didn't see it like that at all. Women try to downplay there ability on the grounds of being overly competitive and domineering might not seem very feminine, whereas what Corpse was saying is he is just rather hard on himself. I can agree with what he was saying as far as it's easy to be downplay you're abilities but femaleness is sometimes synonymous with weakness and a need to let the males seem dominant and what not.(this is just what I have noticed not to talk down on women) Although society is moving to the point where girls are encouraged to be competitive.

I know this isn't the point of your thread, but on the topic of physical vs. metaphysical: Everything is physical, including metaphysical things. This should even be obvious. Even consciousness, from an Eastern spiritual perspective, is physical, it's just very subtle. To say that something can exist without any level of physicality, that's like saying something can exist without existing. At the essence of all things physicality doesn't necessarily need to imply locality, and arguably (though I would disagree) it doesn't necessarily need to imply temporality, either, but it is essential to any and all existence.

Isn't that the point of kabbalah and a ton of other spiritual systems? You start at our low level of vibration and then move towards more subtle levels.

Ok, so I have a friend and we play video games all the time the thing is my friend can never ever just admit defeat and bow out gracefully. Any time I win he throws a fit and blames his defeat on something or changes the rules we had agreed upon at the beginning of the game. It's not just him I have noticed that people can't just accept that they have failed or are wrong, my mother being another prime example. You can't tell her she is wrong if you do she will just proceed to talk in circles until you forget what the debate was about. No one likes to lose but sometimes you have to just call a pig a pig. I'm curious to see how other's feel on such things.

We all started out as products of the underlying reality (God), with unlimited potential. All made of the same basic stuff. Do we grow and thrive, along the way, or become withered parodies of what we might have been? This is the nature of 'free-will'. It is my personal conviction that we do not start out with a soul, but as the viable seed of one. Conceiving this soul and nurturing it, finally setting it free, is our purpose. But, like sperm, few will actually succeed in realizing this purpose. It's all very mysterious, as it should be.

Growing a soul is a very lonely business, in its way. While being the most satisfying thing there is, so few manage it, that the one who does is an island, in a remote ocean, usually only with an empty horizon for company.

I can agree with that to an extent, but what is there to gain from attaining a soul? Wouldn't it be more worth while to just go with the flow? And set free from what? If you are referring from Samsara, I personally beleive most are to week to escape but if you are talking about something else please correct me.

How is this the biggest question at the core of civilization? I would say the way a people view sex is more important than anything else. How people view reality seems to be the most important thing(sex would fall under this off course).

because mating structures affect how much men are incentivized to hold up civilization. With the family being there, the man has incentive to innovate and build society. If he gets no woman, he won't run for a carrot on a string that he'll never savour. Men do everything for pussy. Civilization depends on men.

If sex becomes for pure fun, women will seek the highest alphamales to get the best orgasms from, and the average male is no longer incentivized. This explains all the manchildren and high rates of male suicide in the modern West.

It's men that decide all these things. As far as beta males getting laid it's the same shit it's always been. Alpha male gets the females he wants while the ones that aren't considered desirable by said alpha male have to settle for second string and so on and so on. You also forgot that women are needy parasites(that was very crass and rather harsh but useful for the sake of my argument) most women desire children and a high degree of social interaction. Off course that could all have been just conditioning....but I am skeptical. As far as men not protecting women you are right feminism most likely had something to do with that. If we are equal there is no reason to be a bodyguard for another man.

How is this the biggest question at the core of civilization? I would say the way a people view sex is more important than anything else. How people view reality seems to be the most important thing(sex would fall under this off course).

Today I am lonely. Not in the usual sense, for I have more than enough quality company. But today I lost the most amazingly awesome cat I've ever known. A large female Maine Coon, otherwise known as a Norwegian Forest Cat, who wandered in from the woods about five years ago. I feel sick at heart; my heart is intolerably heavy. This is awful. My wife, too, is in a real state.

It must have been poison, to go from a strapping specimen, overfilled with vigor, to dead, in under two days. I assume she's dead: she was at death's door last night, and was gone in the morning, having chosen to find somewhere quiet, outdoors, to die. I searched all day, but nothing. No sign.

Well. We'll get over it, I'm sure, although it may take a while. I don't feel much, really, when humans die. But somehow this is very different. It's definitely empty, and lonely.

Goodbye Lily. Thank you for the love you gave us. You beautiful, rough, tough, monster.